When we came here in fifteen or so years ago, Nancy Forrester’s Secret Garden was a magical oasis tucked in the middle of a block in Key West, a small forest said to be the last undeveloped acre in the city’s Old Town neighborhood. Full of winding paths and trees it was the rarest of spaces: loved, carefully tended, and shared with the public as a gift of beauty. But even then it felt besieged. In 2012 taxes and expenses became too much and Nancy sold off parcels to developers. From an article in Key News:
The tucked-away entrance to Nancy Forrester’s Secret Garden off Free School Lane in the 500 block of Simonton Street will be closed to the public after today, as finances and property taxes have forced Forrester to sell the land parcels that have housed an artist’s cottage and gallery, parrots, orchids, rare palms, meandering pathways and a meditative garden for more than four decades.
These days the garden has been reduced to a small backyard on Elizabeth Street which Nancy uses as a rescue parrot refuge. In the mornings she gives educational lectures on the birds, full of facts about their brilliant behavior, the destruction of their native habitats, and gentle lectures about how we can all protect native parrot habitats by living more lightly on the land (hint: no red palm oil or beef). From behind the fence came the sounds of a swimming pool being installed in the cutdown middle of the former garden. Nancy has life tenancy on the ill-repaired house where she lives with the parrots.
I don’t know the details of the real estate transactions or Forrester’s finances but I find it incredible that Key West couldn’t rally around one of its living treasures. I’m glad that Nancy remains along with her parrots and I’m grateful my kids got a chance to meet her.
youtu.be
I visited Nancy Forrester‘s Secret Garden in 2008, probably shortly before you did. My son and daughter-in-law are going to visit Key West next February and I recommended the Secret Garden to them, but I found your posting on your blog Quaker Ranter called ‘Nancy‘s garden’ about what has happened to it in the ensuing years and I was very saddened by that. I wanted to send your posting called ‘Nancy‘s garden’ to my daughter-in-law so she could understand why I recommended the secret garden and have been so disappointed that it’s no longer there as it used to be, but although I copied that posting I’m unable to paste it and send it to her. Is there anyway that I could get a copy of ‘Nancy‘s garden’ to send to my daughter-in-law because you so perfectly captured what a wonderful place it used to be, and I agree that I don’t understand why Key West couldn’t have helped her keep that property.